EUGENICS TALK INVITATION (Paper invitation)
1914
HASMG:2017.7.18
Addressed to Miss Jenner of Guestling, this invitation to a Suffrage Society talk on Eugenics is dated just three months before the outbreak of the First World War. Did Miss Jenner attend and, if so, what did she learn about the argument that ‘societies could be improved by encouraging enlightened and able-bodied women to have...
Rights information: Copyright: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Description
Addressed to Miss Jenner of Guestling, this invitation to a Suffrage Society talk on Eugenics is dated just three months before the outbreak of the First World War. Did Miss Jenner attend and, if so, what did she learn about the argument that ‘societies could be improved by encouraging enlightened and able-bodied women to have more children and discouraging poor and disabled women from breeding’?
- Jack Guy, Curating for Change Fellow, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Community curation: I was attracted to this object by the juxtaposition of two concepts – women’s suffrage and eugenics. What interested The Hastings, St. Leonards, and East Sussex Suffrage Society – part of a peaceful movement to win votes for women – with a topic that promoted control over the reproductive rights of certain segments of society? I would love to have been a fly-on- the-wall to hear what Miss Boldero had to say to the women of Hastings and St. Leonards who received and accepted this invitation.